E. Nesbit > Quotes

“There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.”
― E. Nesbit, The Magic World

“There are brown eyes in the world, after all, as well as blue, and one pair of brown that meant heaven to me as the blue had never done”
― E. Nesbit

“Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing a book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right--in the way that's best for us."
Do you really believe that, Mother?" Peter asked quietly.
Yes," she said, "I do believe it--almost always--except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I don't believe it, I know it's true--and I try to believe it.”
― E. Nesbit

“People think six is a great many, when it's children. ...they don't mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think that you ought not to have five brothers and sisters.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right—in the way that's best for us.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“There is no bond like having read and liked the same books.”
― E. Nesbit, Der verzauberte Garten

“Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it's not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them to see you don't want to be un-friends.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.”
― Edith Nesbit

“Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn't a lady, it isn't worth while to be only like one, she'd better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.”
― Edith Nesbit, New Treasure Seekers

“...Albert-next-door doesn't care for reading, and he has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and ignorant, but it cannot be helped... Besides, it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“It's an odd thing- the softer and more easily hurt a woman is the better she can screw herself up to do what has to be done.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Time is but a mode of thought”
― E. Nesbit

“Girls are just as clever as boys, and don't you forget it!”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“If you're lucky enough to be different, don't you ever changed" - Taylor Swift”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“Oh, if I could choose,” said Mabel, “of course I’d marry a brigand, and live in his mountain fastness, and be kind to his captives and help them to escape and-“ “You’ll be a real treasure to your husband.” said Gerald.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“For really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for getting you out of it.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Daddy dear, I'm only four
And I'd rather not be more.
Four's the nicest age to be,
Two and two and one and three.
What I love is two and two,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and you.
What you love is one and three,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and me.
Give your little girl a kiss
Because she learned and told you this.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Don't bother about believing it, if you don't like it,' said the Princess. 'It doesn't so much matter what you believe as what I am.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“What a night it was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. Through all the rush of the cloud river the moon swam, breasting the waves and disappearing again in the darkness.

I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be abroad. There was no scurrying of rabbits, or twitter of the half-asleep birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky, the wind that drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the woodland paths. Across the meadows I could see the church tower standing out black and grey against the sky. ("Man Size In Marble")”
― E. Nesbit, Ghost Stories

“So he caught her in his arms and kissed her, and they were very happy, and told each other what a beautiful world it was, and how wonderful it was that they should have found each other, seeing that the world is not only beautiful but rather large.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Magic World

“Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us."

"They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please them.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Grown-up people find it difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy.”
― Edith Nesbit

“I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to anyone except me. And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“Sometimes, in moments of great need, we can do wonderful things.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It